Hardware advances in computing devices and the networks which interconnect those devices has facilitated an explosion in software applications. Applications such as real-time chat, voice and video are increasingly commonplace and widespread. Voice over Internet Protocol (“VOIP”) telephony allows real-time duplex voice communications to be carried over traditional data channels, potentially obviating the need for traditional voice channels, without the latency or jitter normally associated with the specifications of such data channels.
While somewhat behind wireline networks, wireless networks are also increasing in bandwidth to allow substantially real-time chat, voice and video applications to be carried thereover. Likewise, the processing power of handheld portable devices such as cellular telephones and wireless personal digital assistants can now accommodate such applications.
Traditional revenue sources for wireline and wireless networks include voice telephony and traditional data communications. However, the above-mentioned advances are confusing the means by which network operators are compensated by consumers. For example, traditional voice channels were configured to be carried over twisted pair copper telephone wires, yet, technology advances now permit high speed Internet communications to be carried over twisted pair. Still further advances now permit voice communications to be carried over those Internet connections. As a result, the subscriber may eschew the underlying voice service in favor of the Internet service which now serves to provide both voice and traditional data connectivity for the subscriber. This erodes the underlying revenue base for the wireline carrier, whose business model may depend on charging separate fees for both voice and traditional data services. Hardware advances now raise the same possibility of erosion of revenue sources for wireless carriers, which originally offered only wireless voice connectivity but are increasing offering both voice and data connectivity. However the subscriber may be able to find applications to carry the voice service over the data link and thereby avoid charges for voice services.
The preceding examples are the tip of the iceberg. Applications such as Skype, Google Maps, You Tube, and file sharing services were unforeseen applications that can radically alter the bandwidth profiles for each subscriber, with deleterious effects on bandwidth and quality-of-service allocations which did not anticipate these services. The result can be serious deterioration of quality of service for some subscribers as other subscribers unfairly monopolize all available bandwidth.
As one solution, it is known to offer different subscribers different quality of service in exchange for differing prices. For example, a “gold” subscriber may pay $50 per month and receive five megabits/second of bandwidth, while a “silver” subscriber may pay $40 per month for four megabits/second of bandwidth. However, such plans still depend on bandwidth shaping models that assume certain characteristics of the underlying applications, whereby the entire bandwidth is not being used all of the time. Thus, the “silver” subscriber that runs an application which uses the entire four megabits/second all of the time, may still cause the “gold” subscriber to be deprived of the five megabits/second bandwidth that should be available to that “gold” subscriber.